REVIEW: The HOUSE of the DEAD

House of the Dead - it is cool in the arcade - now it is cool at home.... There are mixed feelings for the game on the internet - I hope my review will help clear some confusion.

First - let's start by stating that this is SEGA SATURN we are talking about here - try comparing it to Virtua Cop 2 - not the arcade. As far as the arcade version goes it fits it just fine - there is loss of clarity in the backgrounds.

GRAPHICS: 8.5

Why??? Simple, this game really turned out well with all things considered - I was expecting worse. If you have played BLOOD - or just about most of the "hallway shooter" games; you may notice that when you get closer to objects - they distort and pixelate... this is true in House of the Dead - although the backgrounds are well-detailed, they do pixelate - the overall effect is acceptable - I found no displeasure from it - they cannot get arcade perfect on this one people. The characters themselves are very impressive - compare to DIEHARD ARCADE - where they simply took flat polys and twisted them to make hands... These characters animate well - and look just like the arcade - with a little loss in the smooth edges. The Corpses blow-up very well.

SOUND: 10

The sound is great - everything is in english - the zombies sound great...

GAMEPLAY: 10

This "Stunner" game is very precise - unless it is making-up for bad shooters... I had no trouble centering the target at all!!!

OPTIONS: 9

Here we have the "new" Saturn mode - which allows you to pick from several characters with different abilities and weaknesses - very nice idea. I gave this a 9 only because I like getting extras on the disk itself - or in options (it may - I haven't beaten it yet).

Some on the net complain that it should have used the Capcom 4meg RAM cart to make it better - I am not overly knowledgable in the ways of programming, but from my understanding - you cannot make a Saturn game console push more polygons by adding RAM!!! It is in the system itself - the loading is minimal - and the heartbeat while you wait for 3 seconds is pretty cool... This game in my views turned out pretty good - the Black Stunner pack is well worth the money - they gave us a great translation for the Saturn 's capabilities - I am pleased.

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